‘They’re bound by their OWN RULES!’ EU's Brexit negotiation SHAFTED by its own legislation

‘They’re bound by their OWN RULES!’ EU's Brexit negotiation SHAFTED by its own legislation

THE European Union’s Brexit bargaining position has been significantly weakened because of an article in the Lisbon Treaty stating neighbouring countries must be treated with “neighbourliness” and be allowed to prosper.

Article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty states: “The Union shall develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness founded on the values of the Union and characterised by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation.”

The very notion of a hard, punishing Brexit has seemingly been rendered obsolete by one of Brussels’ own documents, according to the Director of the Bruges Group, Robert Oulds

Mr Oulds told Express.co.uk: “They can’t give us some kind of terrible deal because they’re bound by their own rules to negotiate free and fair trade access.

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Brussels officials have told Theresa May that Britain must pay what it owes Brussels before negotiations can begin – while a figure of around £52billion has been suggested.

But Mr Ouldes is adamant that it is in fact the EU that owes Britain money.

He said: “The EU isn’t taking into account how much it owes us.

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Robert Oulds of the Bruges Group thinks the EU owes us money

“In fact, it should be them paying us, not the other way around.

“We’re shareholders in the EU investment bank, we gave billions to the bailout fund for countries like Greece and we also own a proportion of the EU’s buildings, not just in Brussels but all over the world.”

But anybody thinking Britain’s involvement with the EU will be nil after Brexit is sorely mistaken.

The UK is part of 96 international organisations, all of which have regular meetings and welcome EU representatives as well as those from individual member states.

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There is the Council of Europe, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Healthcare, Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly and Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, to name but a few.

But now when Britain enters into these international discussions, it will be doing so free from Brussels’ watchful eye, allowing it to take a self-serving stance at all times.

Mr Oulds said: “We’ll still be working with them on international bodies and organisations but we’ll no longer be ties to them [the EU].

“Sometimes in the past they would outmanoeuvre us behind the scenes and publicly we’d have to back their stance, which wasn’t great.